The Ongoing Poem Series About the Winter of 2006 Continues Like This

January 23, 2006
English muffins for breakfast before the sun came up

My plate is green
Bill’s white with sailboats on it
These are the plates that don’t match our dishes

He has his coffee in a cobalt glass mug
with a chip in the lip
that was mine in college

I have my travel mug
with the ugly black plastic lid
and the Japanese tapestry pattern wrapping round it

He fills it half full of coffee for me
with a little bit of milk
and half a packet of sweetener

He leaves the torn packet half empty on the counter
so I can fill the mug up the rest of the way with hot coffee
and dump the other half of the sweetener in just before I leave the house

I don’t add any more milk to the mug
But I do stir it with the long-handled spoon
that I’ve just washed

The coffee maker most often beeps
to indicate that it is shutting off
just as I am doing these things

And I put the coffee pot
into the sink
which I have just finished emptying of dishes